According to several new Chapter 313 applications released July 20 through the Texas comptroller's website, Taylor ISD has approved nine separate applications for facilities at the Taylor location.
Chapter 313 agreements allow public school districts to offer tax incentives for businesses that invest in their communities, according to the Texas Comptroller's Office.
TISD approved the Chapter 313 applications in late May, but specific information has not been released on the nature of the proposed expansion until the documents' July 20 release.
If approved, the facilities would bring an estimated $167.6 billion in investment in addition to the $17 billion Samsung has already committed to at the Taylor site.
Additionally, the proposed expansions would bring about 8,200 net new jobs to Taylor over the next two decades.
Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell, who was instrumental in helping to broker the initial deal to bring Samsung to Taylor, said that while the proposed facilities are by no means "a done deal," he is nevertheless excited for the possibilities.
"The thought that the largest semiconductor facility, or complex, in the world could be built right here in Williamson County—it's just humbling," Gravell said. "Look, we're talking about potential. Nothing is guaranteed. There is still a lot of work to get all of these agreements across the finish line."
Gravell said so far the effort to bring the semiconductor facility to Taylor has been a massive undertaking and credited the city's mayor and the school district for their openness to the investment.
"Taylor continues to remind me of that book [I read] as a kid, 'The Little Engine That Could,'" he said.
In a related development, Taylor City Council approved adding two parcels of land at the Samsung Austin Semiconductor plant site in Taylor to its two tax increment reinvestment zones that cover the area July 14.
Gravell said the U.S. Senate's July 19 advancement of the Creating Helpful Incentives to Produce Semiconductors for America Act, or CHIPS, which will boost the manufacturing industry by opening up to $52 billion in grants for the semiconductor industry, is an added bonus to the Samsung project expansion.
"I can assure you of this: If the federal CHIPS Act gets across the finish line, these projects are going to get across the finish line in Texas," Gravell said, adding the bill still needs approval from the U.S. House of Representatives.
The new applications from Samsung give more detail on nine proposed new fabrication facilities, or "fabs," in addition to the $17 billion Fab 1 already coming to Taylor on roughly 1,200 acres of land west of Taylor High School.
Samsung has also received Chapter 313 application approvals through Manor ISD for two new fabs on unused land at its existing 640-acre site in North Austin on Parmer Lane.
The two fabs at that facility would total $24.5 billion in new investment and add 1,800 net new jobs. The two applications state Fab 3 would be up and running by 2034, and Fab 4 would be up and running by 2042. Both applications request a land value limitation of $80 million for 10 years.
Several entities still need to provide approval for the expansion, including TISD, Williamson County and the city of Taylor, and Samsung still has not committed to the project. Community Impact Newspaper will continue to update this story as it advances.
